Wow, time sure flies when you are not looking!  A lot has come and gone – and come again in our little corner of rural Beaverton.  After our India adventure, we promptly picked up where we left off and hosted a number of events here including a few wonderful Red Hat Teas, a wedding shower for a friend of ours, a corporate luncheon and many B&B guests/friends who were anxious to hear stories and see pictures of our trip.

We had a bit of a disaster hit us with one of our infamous summer storms which took out our neighbors’ tree, together with part of the fence and the eavestroughing of our workshop.  We were back up and running in 3 days thanks to our pastor who showed up one evening with a kicking chainsaw and our wonderful neighbours across the road with a tractor who hauled the tree over to the side of our property to make driveway space for a Tea the next day! We live in a great place!

Syl has been whipping up her usual storm in the kitchen making jams starting with her award-winning strawberry and wild raspberry jams which I am sure will follow shortly by her other preserves as the fruits become in season.  Steve has been chipping away at chopping wood for the fireplace for this winter (eeee gads!!) and we have both left our full-time positions in Toronto to focus more on our home community and the new positions at Beacan church that we have accepted.

Our guests have finally begun to enjoy the mid-summer flower explosion that is surrounding our home and the drought has only minimally affected our lawn.  The gardens are blooming with no small effort on Syl’s part to water them.  We are so looking forward to the rain that is in the forecast as I am sure many farmers are as well.

We have been helping line up the entertainment for the 1^st Annual Brock Big Bite Festival of Food and Friends, www.brocksbigbite.ca , which is happening on the main street of Beaverton on Sunday, August 14^th.   This is a picture of us fronting the Canada Day parade float we were a part of.  Tickets are being sold right up until July 31^st so get your tickets right away – only one week left! There will be lots of entertainment, artists, and food to keep all your senses active from 11:30am to 3:00pm.

Don’t forget that the second week of August is when our world passes through the Perseid Meteor shower – check out the info at  http://iya2009.com/perseid-meteor-shower-peaks-on-tuesday.html. We always try to stay up late in the front yard to see at least a few falling meteors (shooting stars) before we get too tired and have to go to bed.  We have no light pollution so some years the viewing is fantastic as last year we saw a falling star almost every two minutes!  This year we have a full moon so who knows what the show will be like but we’ll be out there…….getting stiff necks…..like little kids…..

We hope that you are enjoying your summer wherever you are.  Stop by for a tea, or a stay.  We’d love to share our home’s summer beauty with you.  Bye for now.

It has been a very short 3 weeks since we left Pearson International Airport for India and now tomorrow we will depart India and head back to Toronto.  It seems like we have always been here (other than not knowing Bengali). It was an awesome experience and we loved doing “life” and ministry with Stewart, Monique and Hope.

We arrived back in Kolkata today from a two day debriefing in Darjeeling.  Pryanka, Kajul, Chandra and Usha were still in the apartment finishing up their jewellry pieces for the day.  We were greeted with huge hugs – I broke down.  They helped me wipe my tears away.  I said that it is good that we are more than friends – we are family and so, I am only leaving physically but my heart will always be near them – I think I said this for my own benefit as well as for theirs so I could muster a smile or two before they went home for the day.  I will be able to spend most of the day with them tomorrow as we are leaving around 5pm our time.   We are heading off to our room now to repack our suitcases and get a good night’s sleep.  Tomorrow will be a long day.  Good bye Kolkata – we will see you again.  You will keep a part of our hearts here and we will take a part of your heart with us.

It’s morning in Kolkata.  We expect the temperature to reach 33 degrees Celsius today, a hot day if this were Toronto.  This is a normal March day here.

Yesterday was a hectic day.    The day started with breakfast with the Children at the children’s home.  These are rescued children from the train stations who are provided with a loving home and brothers and sisters.  The Children’s home is immaculately clean, the water is clean and filtered and the food is wonderful having been prepared in a modern (for India)and clean kitchen.  Sylvia found herself playing with the kids while Steve recorded pictures and video.   The time was spent playing and finger painting.  The children had a great time learning to paint with their fingers and showed some incredible artistry.

Finger painting

breakfast

puree-Stew and Steve are making it a habit

Hugs for everyone

Candy Handout

Train Station Bubbles

The next stop was the Howrah train station where the feeding program is provided for the street children.  The children had a great time blowing bubbles and just simply playing in the safe environment provided for them there.  We were able to leave all sorts of gifts for the children and for children that were not there that day.

After visiting the train station, Sylvia headed back to work with Monique while Steve went back to the church where he conducted training 2 days earlier.  He met with Cliffy F, their technical director, to discuss improvements to their facility in order to prepare for the potential vocational training program.  They would need to acquire everything from computers through video cameras and sound systems and don’t forget some sort of classroom facility.  After all, media covers everything from the written word to film and everything in between.  It will take a miracle for this to come together.  However, if it’s only a miracle, I know where that could come from.

The ladies have continued to work on Jewellery and most of the start-up designs have been completed so it is now to manufacture the jewellery.  It won’t be long until there will be stock for sale.  Well that’s it for now.

Every day brings more unexpected surprises.  Steve was off with Stewart to meet with several people.  The first stop was AG Towers where Stewart has an office for his work with the drug addicts (see Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011 blog entry-panoramic picture taken from the window in Stew’s office).  Today He and his staff met with a mom and 2 of her 3 sons because this is the day they would go in to detox.  It’s another sad story of drug addiction in Kolkata.  The 3rd brother is the one who has been keeping the family going.  He was the provider for his mother and 2 drug addicted brothers but that changed a very short time ago.  The older brother suddenly died leaving his mother and 2 brothers to fend for themselves.  Out of desperation the mother contacted Stewart and brought her 2 remaining sons into see him.  The sons agreed to get cleaned up.  It was a touching experience to hear the 2 sons request a visit to their brother’s grave before they go in.  Stewart’s associates walked with the 2 brothers to the grave site, then back to the office to collect their bags and then escort them to the detox centre.  They will be in the centre for approximately a year.

So we’ve reported several cases of drug addicts being sent to detox.  What then?  They come out of detox clean but will they go back?  Sadly, that is often the case.  Today, Steve sat with Stewart in the office of the local pastor.  We talked about the potential of providing vocational training for people, when they come out of detox, in the media arts field.  The pastor thought it was a tremendous idea explaining that the Indian people are by nature artistic plus India as a whole is moving forward technically.  We’ll look forward to the next stage in this process.

Syl started her day on another shopping trip to New Market with Monique getting supplies for the jewellery business.  It’s good to know that there are occasional opportunities to get away from training and manufacturing.  It’s a heavy load and Sylvia has also felt the incredible responsibility that Monique faces with her friends of Kalighat.  Later in the afternoon everyone was back at the house working on Jewellery.  Steve and Stewart got involved by taking pictures of the jewellery for sale. This is a difficult task considering neither of them are photographers and neither are graphic artists but some of the pictures are included in this blog entry so you can decide for yourself.  Right now, Sylvia is working on a cloth bag for packaging the jewellery.  The goal is to make sure from start to finish each piece of jewellery is special and above average quality.  They use real gem stones in the jewellery and they will package the pieces in colourful cloth bags.  Each piece will identify which lady hand-made each piece of jewellery.

Well once again, it’s time for sleep.  Have a good morning friends in Canada and if you are not in Canada, good day !

It’s been an awesome day in Kolkata.  Faith, hope and love enveloped Syl’s day from beginning to end.  The morning started with Syl asking the ladies about what they think faith is…….they had all kinds of answers so she helped them with two illustrations. The rest of the conversation got very emotional and exciting – a story for another time.  By 5:30 pm the ladies had finished creating 3 sets of the 4th necklace design – complete with two pairs of earrings and working on the 5th.  The day ended with Syl giving them all cute stuffed plush animals (a little belated, of course) complete with little valentine heart collars.  They loved them !!

Steve had a very productive and busy day – so much so that he has fallen asleep against me while Syl was trying to get him to edit this entry……oh well – We’ll have to wing his side of the day.  He  spent the whole day teaching 12 men from our hosts’ church on safety (equipment and techniques), correct operation of a video camera, lighting and audio.  They really picked his brain all day (probably why he is sleeping now…;0)…)  Tomorrow he will be doing extensive consulting on sound and lighting.  He is looking forward to helping in any way he can as this is where his expertise lies.  He still needs to get more footage for our documentary short film and hopefully that will all come together within the next few days.

It has been a very exciting trip so far.  This time next week we will be flying back to Canada.  Time sure flies.  I can hardly wait to see what surprises tomorrow will bring us here in the City of Joy.

Today Stew and Steve went downtown for a very difficult meeting with a drug addict.  We’ll call him Jim and his wife Sue.

Jim and Sue have 2 kids.  Jim was high on heroin today.  Jim had been a heavy drug user when Stewart and Monique came to Kolkata.  Over time, Jim got cleaned up and became involved in the work that Stewart and Monique were doing.  He got married to Sue and had 2 beautiful kids.  He made a mistake several weeks ago.  He got high and threatened his wife with a knife.  What we witnessed today was tough love from Stewart as Stewart explained to Jim and Sue that Jim must go into detox for 6 months to a year.  He must rebuild once again if he is to have hope in life.  Sue will have an option of going with the children to the children’s home where she will be looked after.

I met Steve just before the meeting with Jim and Sue.  Steve is a recovering drug addict.  He has been to detox 17 times and now has been clean for 2 months.  He is a nice man who grew up in the church but got involved with the wrong people.   He explained to me that there are thousands of people just like him and Jim who are on “brown sugar” (heroin) all around the building we were all meeting in.  Steve took Jim from Stewarts downtown office to the detox centre.

These are 2 stories of the pain of drugs in Kolkata.  It’s everywhere and it’s from 5 or 6 year olds and up.  Kids get high on glue, adults use heroin.  It takes a unique individual with a passion to make a difference.

Stew and I then went down to the Howrah Train station where they provide a feeding program.  These kids just need hugs and love.  The people who operate the program for Stew and Monique are wonderful and the kids….well look at the pictures.  I was swarmed in a good way.  These kids need to be loved and they are receiving just that.  I sense we will be spending a lot more time with these kids.  The children that come to the feeding program get breakfast and lunch and have schooling in between breakfast and lunch.  Today they were learning the english alphabet.  The local language is Bengali and they will remain where they are if they just learn Bengali.  English will prepare them for life outside of Kolkata.

We have realized that we are here to help Stewart and Monique get rest.  Sylvia has not left the side of Monique as she trains her friends from the Kalighat area.  It is a 40 hour per week commitment in addition to the other ministries Monique is involved in.  Here’s an image of the jewellery piece as it’s being made.

A great sleep and a bright and sunny morning.  After a wonderful breakfast Monique, Syl and Steve (yes I said Steve) went shopping for jewelry supplies at New Market (as opposed to Newmarket).  The last time I experienced that type of market was the Jerusalem market.  Monique and Syl seemed to find what they were looking for.  In a couple of hours, they purchased thread, sample fabric, silver items and trim. How exciting to see it all coming together.  After the market, Sylvia and Monique went back to home to continue with jewelry while Steve met up with Stew to meet some of the people we will be assisting with technical training.

It was a long day in the air from Germany to Kolkata.  We landed in Kolkata amidst smog, humidity and hundreds of horns blasting simultaneously. We went directly to the home of Stewart and Monique (a 25 minute drive or so)  where we were sent into action.  Sylvia walked into assisting Monique with teaching the english alphabet and phonetics to friends from one of the redlight areas, while Steve and Stew carried luggage into what we will call home for the next 15 days.  Stewart gave me a tour of their own home (an old tanning factory) including a roof top view of the city of Kolkata.  Then off to the children’s home where all of the children plus several of their caregivers were sick with Chicken Pox (I sure hope that I have already had it).  I was given a tour of the home and we looked at some adjoining properties that they are pursuing to build a “life center” in the red light district and a property that may some day be the location of a school for 2000 children. First impressions:

• Stew and Monique are visionaries with an immense love for all people
• Driving in Kolkata is an exciting experience
• It’s very humid here
• I have not met an unfriendly person yet. (But then, we haven’t been in a crowded market yet)
• either Monique needs a mallet or we need to know “where’s the real beef?”
• there is an immediate need to find a wonderful qualified national to provide vocational training in order to free Monique to focus on the jewellry business design/start-up and to enable her to maintain  her ministry in the red light district.  She needs this person yesterday! 

We are off now to a much-needed sleep in a real bed!

Saturday, February 19th:  We are on our way!  First stop – England. After getting onto the plane  we discovered that our seats were middle row seats. As Steve wanted the outside seat to be able to stretch his legs better, I ended up in the middle of the middle of the plane.  With childhood memories of  carsickness during endless summer drives (when I’d consistently lose the fight over the window seat to my 2 brothers), I started to think about some bible text  my friend Maggie and I were talking about  before we left – Psalm 28:9 “be their shepherd and carry them forever”. Well, as I thought how God will carry me forever, I began to relax, knowing that I will survive as thousands of people who sit in middle seats survive unscathed!

As the plane was leveling out, it was impressed upon me to say a simple  hello to the passenger on my right. I figured it would be a long trip not to be hospitable, (and we did want to be friendly to everyone we encountered on this trip), I waited for a moment when I could meet his eyes.  What followed next was a 4 hour conversation with my new pilot friend, Patrick, from Lagos, Nigeria!  I managed to get about an hour’s sleep before we got off the plane and all was well.  God is so gracious and surprising!

We did have window seats to Frankfurt Germany and all our baggage made it there safe and sound.  Second stop – Frankfurt.  Our friends Kerstin and Jochen met us much to their surprise, in a practically empty part of the airport.  They said it was most unusual that we were in that part of old terminal coming from England – they expected to have to push through crowds to find us as Frankfurt is the busiest airport in Germany and second largest in all of Europe.  What unexpected grace again! We got settled in and had dinner with them, retiring early so we could get some much needed rest from the 6 hour time difference.

We spend today with them in their home and tomorrow we will depart for the next leg of our journey to Kolkata.  That’s it for now.  Next post will be from Kolkata. Do we still have any snow in Ontario?